When I was very young, I lived for a time with my grandparents. My grandfather, a commercial artist and painter, had designed a beautiful, three-dimensional manger scene for Christmas that was maybe three to four feet long and maybe two to three feet high at its highest, which my grandparents would set in the large window facing the front porch. The manger scene included the obligatory camels, shepherds, a dark evening sky, and a large beautiful star. There were several electric lights as well, which meant the scene had to be plugged in. I’ll never forget how beautiful that manger scene looked from outside on the porch every night during the Christmas season, when I’d come back in after a long day of school or from spending the day hanging out with the neighborhood kids, before going inside.

The Christmas season was without doubt always something very special, a special time for a special event. While we went to church I wouldn’t say my family was overly religious, but I loved to read as a child and the Holy Bible was certainly not excluded from my reading list. I can’t say for certain, but I’d say I’d probably read most of it from front to back by the time I graduated high school which, given my rebellious teenage years, was no small feat. Still, I’m quite sure I never fully grasped the connection between the Birth of Christ and the “magic” that made Christmas the wonderful, magical time that it is.

I remember spending many Christmas Eves watching Christmas movies like A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, and of course, White Christmas. Christmas was always a very special time growing up, even into young adulthood it felt as if much of the “magic” of Christmas remained throughout much of our popular culture. It seemed as if even then, however, it was starting to wane, that “magic’, or at least the collective feeling in the air that always came with the candy canes, the wreaths, and the festive music. Was Christmas ever like a Norman Rockwell painting for me? Well, to be honest there may have been a few that were not so far off, though certainly not that many. Still, there was no mistaking the smiles on everyone’s faces, the extra spring in their steps, and the extra courtesy that made its appearance without fail, each and every Christmas.

Why have things changed? I’m not certain I can pin it down to any one thing. Multiculturalism. A growing persecution of Christians in America, something that was literally unheard of when I was a child. It seems everywhere we turn we hear about how Christians are infringing on every possible group on the left, while Christians themselves never seem to have their rights abridged by those on the left. The rise in power of the left following the cultural revolution of the sixties and seventies, a growing apathetic culture, all of it seems to have contributed to the steep decline in the richness of our culture. Christmas now is about everything except Jesus, instead of nothing but Jesus. But should we really be surprised? We’ve kicked God out of our schools, many of our government buildings, and if it were up to some on the left, all vestiges of Christianity would be entirely erased from our culture for eternity. Should we be surprised if God one day turns his back on America? “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 10:33

It seems that for those of us who enjoyed those Norman Rockwell paintings growing up, and for those of us whom The Little Drummer Boy and Charlie Brown’s Christmas could bring a tear to our eyes when the programs reached a certain part in their respective stories, we’ve reached the end of an era in America.

But Christians everywhere should take heart, however, and remember, it is when the Church has been persecuted the most that it has grown and prospered the most. It’s as if the fires of persecution served to refine the faith of those who chose to believe despite the cost, as opposed who chose to believe because there was no cost.

Maybe things will improve here, maybe they’ll get worse. Either way for those of us who believe, we know how the story ends; God Himself comes down to earth in the flesh and a child is born, He grows up, and lays down his life as a ransom for many, so that we may live.

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

From my family to yours,

May God grant you a safe, blessed, joyous, and Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Jeff W. Horton!

Follow my blog by following this link and entering your contact information: http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?page_id=148

]]>http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?feed=rss2&p=8010801A little about me and my writinghttp://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=776
http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=776#respondSun, 03 Dec 2017 07:53:46 +0000http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=776I thought maybe I should share with those of you haven’t been following […]

I thought maybe I should share with those of you haven’t been following me for long a little about me, the kind of novels I write, and a sentence or two about each of the novels I’ve written.

A little about me

Eight years ago, after twenty-four years in the Information Technology field, I decided to try my hand at writing. Me being who I am, I decided to start with the marathon of writing, the novel. As it turns out, I actually rather enjoy writing novels, having turned out nine novels now in nearly as many years, all while continuing to work in the Information Technology field during the day. This means, of course, that the majority of my writing is done late at night, and on weekends or while on vacations. I continue working to get to the point that I write fulltime as a novelist, but I’m not there yet.

So what kind of novels do I write? Well, I tend to write whatever happens to strike my fancy at the time, on whatever topic or subject matter I feel the most passionate about or the highest level of interest in at that point in time. That high-level of energy helps fuel the writing process and get me off to a good start with the project. It’s not necessarily the most successful strategy long-term , however, as bouncing between genres makes it harder to build a fan-base in any one genre, but that’s the writer I am, let the chips fall where they may.

I’m profoundly grateful to my Lord Jesus Christ for the fact that I am a Christian; a work in progress to be certain, but a Christian nonetheless. The impact this reality has on my writing is significant. I’m a true believer so, as so many of my atheist readers have labored so intently on pointing out, my Christian worldview tends to come across in my novels in various ways whether I intend it to or not, though not always in ways you might think.

While I enjoy them, I don’t write Christian Inspirational novels. I write more of a contemporary fiction, or what some might refer to as a spiritual fiction. I write science-fiction, dystopian, apocalyptic fiction, romance, yet they all will have some element, no matter how small, of my faith in them. In the techno-thriller Cybersp@ce, for example, there wasn’t much of a religious element present, other than a church funeral and a church service that some of the main characters attended. There is some mild violence, but little or no profanity or graphic language, for example. In New Beginnings, however, there is a theological discussion about God and religion between an ambassador from Earth and an alien representative on the alien’s home- world. Also, in The Last Prophet, however, the entire novel is based on Chapter 11 in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. This means, naturally, that there is extensive reference to God, the Bible, and even a number of passages right out of the Bible. The amount of faith-based material in each work is nearly always based on the individual novel.

What I set out to accomplish when I write a novel is to tell a good story, a great story. I seek to write novels that entertain, provoke thought, and in some small way perhaps, reach some readers through the integrity, values, and decency of the protagonist, or some other character in the novel. I want to write original, captivating material that engages entertains, and hopefully, leaves people thinking, “Wow, that’s so true; I never really thought about that before!”

Am I writing my novels in certain ways in order to try to convert people to Christianity? No, of course not. Do I want everyone who reads them who are not Christian to become Christians? Absolutely.

I write because I want to offer everyone engrossing, quality, yet still wholesome entertainment value to the world as an alternative to the steady diet of sex and gratuitous violence that has filled the television screens in our homes and the pages of our books,

Before we move on to discuss the various novels I’ve written, just pause for a moment to consider the inverse of what I just stated above. If my Christian worldview inevitably comes across in my writing whether I intend it to or not, should we not expect atheists’ worldviews to also come across in all of their writings as well, whether they intended for it to or not? Think about it…

A little about my Works

As of December, 2017 I’ve had nine novels published. The genres include apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, children’s/pre-teen, Sci-Fi, romance, and dystopian

My first published novel, The Great Collapse, was an apocalyptic-thriller about the sudden demise of civilization on our planet when electricity and electronics stop working all over the globe.

The sequel to that novel, The Dark Age, was a post-apocalyptic novel set in a medieval-like future where humanity has once more learned to cope and survive without electricity.

The third novel I wrote, The Last Prophet, went off into an entirely different direction altogether. Set in the present or near-future, The Last Prophet is about the fulfillment of events detailed in Revelation Chapter 11 from the Holy Bible. So this too was an apocalyptic fiction novel though many Christians would agree that at least some of what is detailed in The Last Prophet will come to pass because it’s in the Bible.

I then took a stab at a children’s novel entitled The Way of Nacor, a sort of updated Chronicles of Narnia, but with a Sci-Fi theme instead of a mythological theme to it, and a story about a family of four siblings who find themselves mysteriously transported to a strange alien planet one afternoon, before having to pass a series of trials and temptations in order to get back home.

I then wrote the Cybersp@ce Series, is a multi-generational novel that follows the Reynolds family. It begins with the first novel in the trilogy, Cybersp@ce, a novel about Nick Reynolds (a Cyber Command analyst), cyber-warfare, espionage, recovered alien technology, and the sewing of the seeds for a new and exciting future for humanity.

The second in the Cybersp@ce series, Frontiers, focuses on Nick’s son Hank, the test pilot for Earth’s first interstellar spaceship, Frontier. and the creation of the Earth Space Alliance, a sort of United Nations that manages and oversees the new technology on behalf of all nations.

The third novel in the series, New Beginnings, features my first female lead, Nicole Reynolds, Nicks granddaughter, who leads the effort to find the first habitable planet outside of our solar system for humanity to colonize., and finds herself in the middle of a 5000 year-old intergalactic war.

With Heaven’s Oasis, my eighth novel, I wrote my first romance/adventure/thriller novel, a tragic tale about a man whose wife dies, leading him on a quest to finish the work she’d started when she’d discovered the existence of something right out of the Bible that she’d told him would change the world.

My ninth and most recent novel, just published in November of 2017, was Future Schism, a dystopian novel along the lines of 1984 or Brave New World, in which the United States, following a Second American Civil War between the liberal and conservative segments of the population,, no longer exists, leaving in its wake two provinces, the Blue Zone and the Red Zone.

Well, that’s it. A brief, super-high-level summary of me and my works completed to date. I didn’t really speak any to the screenplays I’ve done or the adaptation I’ve done from one of my novels, but I will likely mention it in a future blog post.

]]>http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?feed=rss2&p=7760776Link to WMD Article Obama Holdovers Expose United States to Devastating EMP Attack That Could Kill Over 200 Million Americanshttp://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=766
http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=766#respondSun, 26 Nov 2017 00:32:09 +0000http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=766Below is an excerpt from an excellent WorldNetDaily.Com article about the underlying reasons […]

]]>Below is an excerpt from an excellent WorldNetDaily.Com article about the underlying reasons for the shutdown of the EMP Commission in October, and the possibly dire ramifications of its closure.

As it turns out, the shutdown appears to have come about merely because it was in the interest of political payback on the part of liberal Democrats left in positions from the Obama administration. I found it surprising and greatly disturbing that so many in our government have allowed themselves to become debased to the point that they no longer have even the slightest bit of personal integrity and honor remaining; that they are willing to risk the lives of millions of Americans to satisfy their own petty political interests. I suppose only after we start requiring our elected officials and the people they hire to exhibit greater character and personal integrity, and only after those same officials begin placing the welfare of the American people above their own interests, will our country once again be safe.

As in The Great Collapse the human cost of being unprepared for an EMP attack against our national infrastructure are unthinkable in terms of starvation, dehydration, disease, and violence.

If we continue to allow our political differences to divide to the point we’re willing to risk the lives of millions of Americans just to damage the other side we could, just as in Future Schism, end up one day in a second civil war, and the end of the United States as we know it.

We should pray that such an attack never comes about. Once again, I encourage everyone to write the president and your congressmen, I am.

‘Obama holdovers’ exposing U.S. to possible EMP attack

‘These people are undermining and opposing’ Trump’s policies

WASHINGTON – There’s no question that the United States is vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse attack that could result in mass starvation and the death of about 90 percent of the American population, a nuclear strategist warns.

But the deep state – those entrenched bureaucrats whose loyalties likely lay with a previous administration, under which they got their jobs – is indifferent.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a nuclear strategist formerly with the CIA who served as chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission until it was terminated in September (the same month North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb, which it described as capable of a super powerful EMP attack), said liberal Democrats still are running a lot of Washington even after President Trump’s election.

“The people who sabotaged the EMP Commission, Obama holdovers, are still at the Department of Defense. They have not been replaced by the Trump administration. This is happening not just with the vitally important EMP Commission,” he said. “Our society, the Trump administration and the people who voted for Trump are paying for the failure of Congress to support Trump appointees quickly.

“At the same time during the Obama administration, he had twice as many appointees appointed to positions in government than Trump has. It’s not President Trump’s fault – these people are undermining and opposing the policies that President Trump has enacted, including the case of the EMP Commission.”

Obama administration bureaucrats, who believed Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 presidential election, did everything they could to sabotage and undermine the commission, Pry said.

“They held back money for a whole year. They held back security clearances. They tried to stop the commission’s staff from working, arguing that ‘you need a contract in order to work for the EMP Commission.’ They wouldn’t even let me work, or other staff, pro-bono. We did anyway.

“Had Hillary won, we would never have received any of our funding or security clearances. It was all after she clearly lost and Congress intervened that they relented at the last minute. A commission that was supposed to have been able to work 18 months at EMP ended up with resources and support from the Department of Defense that enabled us to put in six months of work. That’s no way to provide for the national security of the country against an existential threat like EMP.”

The threat of a North Korean nuclear attack on the U.S. is almost unimaginably worse than turning a city like Chicago or Denver into ashes, they testified. If just one of the nuclear weapons North Korea is now known to possess could be directed toward the heartland of the U.S. and detonated in the upper atmosphere, it could fry the electrical grid with an electromagnetic pulse, paralyze communications and transportation nationwide, instantly plunge the country back into a 19th century-style existence and cause 90 percent of Americans to starve to death in one year.

I am so pleased to announce that I’ve recently signed an agreement with Frazier Publicity for them to represent me and my growing body of works to the industry and to the public. I’m very excited about the expected progress and changes I’m really expecting some big things to come out of this, and some really positive to be taking place over the coming months as we move into a new year.

So, I’d like to extend a hardy welcome to Sherry Frazier and Frazier Publicity. Together we’ll make some wonderful things happen and share some wonderful entertainment with the public!

The blog page of Jeff W. Horton

It was my first novel, and it was about the end of the world, or at least the end of civilization as we know it. A massive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) blankets the Earth when an experimental EMP weapon is detonated in a satellite high above the United States by an enemy government in an attempt to cripple the country ahead of an attack. Instead of just affecting the United States however, it impacts the entire planet. And as if that were not enough, a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun arrives at nearly the same time as the EMP is detonated, trapping the Earth in a nightmarish scenario; a perpetual EMP.

Yes, my novel was fiction. As I researched the science behind it, however, I grew increasingly alarmed by what I learned about EMP, and just how vulnerable our country, our society, and in fact, human civilizations all over the planet are to the devastating effects of an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to knock out a national power grid. Just imagine waking up one morning, as the characters in The Great Collapse did, and finding it eerily quiet all around you. No phones ringing, not cars driving by, no airplanes overhead, no sirens in the distance. Everything in our modern world would immediately come to a complete and irreversible stop.

So what is an electromagnetic pulse and why is it important?

As defined by Merriam-Webster:

“Definition of electromagnetic pulse:

“a pulse of high-intensity electromagnetic radiation generated especially by a nuclear blast high above the earth’s surface and held to disrupt electronic and electrical systems “

While my novel The Great Collapse was published in 2010, I’d started researching it the year before in 2009. That’s when I’d come across it, a 2008 report published by the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse to the United States of America (or EMP Commission).

2008 EMP Commission Report

2008 Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack.

Summary

In 2008, the bipartisan Electromagnetic Pulse Commission testified before Congress that the U.S. as a society today is not structured, nor does it have the means, to provide for the needs of nearly 300 million Americans without electricity. It found the current strategy for recovery from a failure of the electric grid leaves us ill prepared to respond effectively to a manmade or naturally occurring EMP event that would potentially result in damage to vast numbers of components nearly simultaneously over an unprecedented geographic scale. Should the electrical power system be lost for any substantial period of time the consequences are likely to be catastrophic to society, including potential casualties in excess of 60% of the population, according to the Chairman of the EMP Commission. Negative impacts on the electric infrastructure are potentially catastrophic in an EMP event unless practical steps are taken to provide protection for critical elements of the electric system. Finally, most experts predict the occurrence of severe geomagnetic storms is inevitable; it is only a matter of when.

Unfortunately, and for some inexplicable reason, this group was defunded by the DoD. I have yet to see a sensible explanation as to why this has happened. I also seem to be having trouble locating the 2008 EMP Report now. Once I find it I’ll be sure to post it for anyone wanting to download it. It was paid for with our tax dollars, so it’s a public document.

Below is a little more information about the EMP Commission and its recent shutdown, taken from the Chairman Graham’s statement to Congress below:

“By way of background, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack was established by Congress in 2001 to advise the
Congress, the President, Department of Defense and other departments and agencies of the U.S. Government on the nuclear EMP threat to military systems and civilian critical infrastructures.

The EMP Commission was re-established in 2015 with its charter broadened to include natural EMP from solar storms, all manmade EMP threats, cyber-attack, sabotage and Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare. The EMP Commission charter gives it access to all relevant classified and unclassified data and the power to levy analysis upon the Department of Defense.
On September 30, 2017, the Department of Defense, after withholding a significant part of the monies allocated by Congress to support the work of the EMP Commission for the entirety of 2016, terminated funding the EMP Commission. In the same month, North Korea detonated an H-Bomb that it plausibly describes as capable of “super-powerful EMP” attack and released a technical report “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” accurately describing what Russia and China call a “Super-EMP” weapon.”

You can try downloading the full report from EMPact America’s website, though at the time of this posting I seemed to have some difficulty getting it to work.

You can also try clicking on the link below labeled “Executive Report.” If it downloads for you, I believe you’ll be surprised at what you find.

In an article published in The Hill back in October, the magazine mentions Earth’s near-miss with a Coronal Mass Ejection, or a massive solar flare, from the sun, in 2012.

“In 2012, Earth passed by a CME that missed the planet by days. Had Earth passed through the phenomena, damages would’ve set the United States back 200 years, according to NASA. Based on historic data, Lloyds Bank and Oxford University fixed the likelihood of a major CME impact to North America at 12 percent per decade.”

Please note the eerie coincidence that in The Great Collapse, the Earth does just that, intersecting with a coronal mass ejection from the sun. Also, as you’ll read in Dr. Graham’s statement to Congress below, our enemies could smuggle an EMP weapon aboard a satellite to use against us, just as in The Great Collapse.

Below is a report from October 2017, after the EMP Commission was inexplicably disbanded and shutdown. In it you will find some rather disturbing and troubling truths that will likely both frighten and anger you. I suggest you allow it to motivate you not to protest and yell at the sky, but rather to write and call your congressmen, the president, and your local newspapers, encouraging everyone along the way to do anything and everything they can to protect our country’s infrastructure from an EMP attack not just from the North Koreans, but from the Chinese, the Russians, from ISIS, from Al Queada, from Hezbollah, from Iran, from …..well, you get the idea.

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD
DR. WILLIAM R. GRAHAM, CHAIRMAN

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY, CHIEF OF STAFF

COMMISSION TO ASSESS THE THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES FROM ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) ATTACK

TO

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY

HEARING

“EMPTY THREAT OR SERIOUS DANGER: ASSESSING NORTH KOREA’S RISK TO THE HOMELAND”

October 12, 2017

North Korea Nuclear EMP Attack: An Existential Threat

During the Cold War, major efforts were undertaken by the Department of Defense to assure that the U.S. national command authority and U.S. strategic forces could survive and operate after an EMP attack. However, no major efforts were then thought necessary to protect critical national infrastructures, relying on nuclear deterrence to protect them. With the development of small nuclear arsenals and long-range missiles by new, radical U.S. adversaries, beginning with North Korea, the threat of a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. becomes one of the few ways that such a country could inflict devastating damage to the United States. It is critical, therefore, that the U.S. national leadership address the EMP threat as a critical and existential issue, and give a high priority to assuring the leadership is engaged and the necessary steps are taken to protect the country from EMP.
By way of background, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack was established by Congress in 2001 to advise the Congress, the President, Department of Defense and other departments and agencies of the U.S. Government on the nuclear EMP threat to military systems and civilian critical infrastructures. The EMP Commission was re-established in 2015 with its charter broadened to include natural EMP from solar storms, all manmade EMP threats, cyber-attack, sabotage and Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare. The EMP Commission charter gives it access to all relevant classified and unclassified data and the power to levy analysis upon the Department of Defense.

On September 30, 2017, the Department of Defense, after withholding a significant part of the monies allocated by Congress to support the work of the EMP Commission for the entirety of 2016, terminated funding the EMP Commission. In the same month, North Korea detonated an H-Bomb that it plausibly describes as capable of “super-powerful EMP” attack and released a technical report “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” accurately describing what Russia and China call a “Super-EMP” weapon.

2

Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Homeland Security has asked Congress to continue the EMP Commission. The House version of the National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision that would replace the existing EMP Commission with new Commissioners. Yet the existing EMP Commission comprises the nation’s foremost experts who have been officially or unofficially continuously engaged trying to advance national EMP preparedness for 17 years.

And today, as the EMP Commission has long warned, the nation faces a potentially imminent and existential threat of nuclear EMP attack from North Korea. Recent events have proven the EMP Commission’s critics wrong about other highly important aspects of the nuclear missile threat from North Korea:

–Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s nuclear arsenal was primitive, some academics claiming it had as few as 6 A-Bombs. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea has 60 nuclear weapons. –Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s ICBMs were fake, or if real could not strike the U.S. mainland. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea’s ICBMs can strike Denver and Chicago, and perhaps the entire United States. –Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea was many years away from an HBomb. Now it appears North Korea has H-Bombs comparable to sophisticated U.S. two-stage thermonuclear weapons. –Just six months ago, most experts claimed North Korean ICBMs could not miniaturize an ABomb or design a reentry vehicle for missile delivery. Now the intelligence community reportedly assesses North Korea has miniaturized nuclear weapons, and has developed reentry vehicles for missile delivery, including by ICBMs that can strike the U.S.1

After massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities, number of nuclear weapons, warhead miniaturization, and proximity to an H-Bomb, the biggest North Korean threat to the U.S. remains unacknowledged—nuclear EMP attack.

North Korea confirmed the EMP Commission’s assessment by testing an H-Bomb that could make a devastating EMP attack, and in its official public statement: “The H-Bomb, the explosive power of which is adjustable from tens of kilotons to hundreds of kilotons, is a multi-functional thermonuclear weapon with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack according to strategic goals.”2

As noted earlier, Pyongyang also released a technical report accurately describing a “SuperEMP” weapon.3

Just six months ago, some academics dismissed EMP Commission warnings and even, literally, laughed on National Public Radio at the idea North Korea could make an EMP attack.

Primitive and “Super-EMP” Nuclear Weapons are Both EMP Threats The EMP Commission finds that even primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons are such a significant EMP threat that rogue states, like North Korea, or terrorists may well prefer using a nuclear weapon for EMP attack, instead of destroying a city: “Therefore, terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or military base, they may obtain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them—or threatening their use—in an EMP attack.”4

The EMP Commission 2004 Report warns: “Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quartercentury.”5

In 2004, two Russian generals, both EMP experts, warned the EMP Commission that the design for Russia’s Super-EMP warhead, capable of generating high intensity EMP fields over 100,000 volts per meter, was “accidentally” transferred to North Korea. They also said that due to “brain drain,” Russian scientists were in North Korea, as were Chinese and Pakistani scientists according to the Russians, helping with the North’s missile and nuclear weapon programs. In 2009, South Korean military intelligence told their press that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop an EMP nuclear weapon. In 2013, a Chinese military commentator stated North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear weapons.6 Super-EMP weapons are low-yield and designed to produce not a big kinetic explosion, but rather a high level of gamma rays, which generates the high-frequency E1 EMP that is most damaging to the broadest range of electronics. North Korean nuclear tests, including the first in 2006, whose occurrence was predicted to the EMP Commission two years in advance by the two
3 Ibid. Kim Song-won, Dean of Kim Chaek University of Technology “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” Rodong Sinmun, Pyongyang, September 4, 2017. 4 Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, Executive Report, 2004, p. 2. 5 Ibid. 6 U.S. Senate, Hearing, Statement for the Record, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, “Foreign Views of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack” testimony on behalf of EMP Commission before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Washington, D.C.: March 9, 2005); Kim Min-sek and Yoo Jee-ho, “Military Source Warns of North’s EMP Bomb” JoonAng Daily (September 2, 2009); Li Daguang, “North Korean Electromagnetic Attack Threatens South Korea’s Information Warfare Capabilities” Tzu Chin, No. 260 (June 1, 2012) pp. 44-45.

4

Russian EMP experts, mostly have yields consistent with the size of a Super-EMP weapon. The Russian generals’ accurate prediction about when North Korea would perform its first nuclear test, and of a yield consistent with a Super-EMP weapon, indicates their warning about a North Korean Super-EMP weapon should be taken very seriously.

EMP Threat From Satellites While most analysts are fixated on when in the future North Korea will develop highly reliable intercontinental missiles, guidance systems, and reentry vehicles capable of striking a U.S. city, the threat here and now from EMP is largely ignored. EMP attack does not require an accurate guidance system because the area of effect, having a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, is so large. No reentry vehicle is needed because the warhead is detonated at highaltitude, above the atmosphere. Missile reliability matters little because only one missile has to work to make an EMP attack against an entire nation.

North Korea could make an EMP attack against the United States by launching a short-range missile off a freighter or submarine or by lofting a warhead to 30 kilometers burst height by balloon. While such lower-altitude EMP attacks would not cover the whole U.S. mainland, as would an attack at higher-altitude (300 kilometers), even a balloon-lofted warhead detonated at 30 kilometers altitude could blackout the Eastern Electric Power Grid that supports most of the population and generates 75 percent of U.S. electricity.

Or an EMP attack might be made by a North Korean satellite, right now.

A Super-EMP weapon could be relatively small and lightweight, and could fit inside North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-3 (KMS-3) and Kwangmyongsong-4 (KMS-4) satellites. These two satellites presently orbit over the United States, and over every other nation on Earth-demonstrating, or posing, a potential EMP threat against the entire world.

North Korea’s KMS-3 and KMS-4 satellites were launched to the south on polar trajectories and passed over the United States on their first orbit. Pyongyang launched KMS-4 on February 7, 2017, shortly after its fourth illegal nuclear test on January 6, that began the present protracted nuclear crisis with North Korea.

The south polar trajectory of KMS-3 and KMS-4 evades U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radars and National Missile Defenses, resembling a Russian secret weapon developed during the Cold War, called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that would have used a nuclear-armed satellite to make a surprise EMP attack on the United States.7

about the potential North Korean EMP threat from their satellites. For example, on September 20, 2016 Ambassador Cooper wrote:

U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) interceptors are designed to intercept a few North Korean ICBMs that approach the United States over the North Polar region. But current U.S. BMD systems are not arranged to defend against even a single ICBM that approaches the United States from over the South Polar region, which is the direction toward which North Korea launches its satellites…This is not a new idea. The Soviets pioneered and tested just such a specific capability decades ago—we call it a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS)…So, North Korea doesn’t need an ICBM to create this existential threat. It could use its demonstrated satellite launcher to carry a nuclear weapon over the South Polar region and detonate it…over the United States to create a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP)…The result could be to shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans—as the EMP Commission testified over eight years ago.8

Former NASA rocket scientist James Oberg visited North Korea’s Sohae space launch base, witnessed elaborate measures undertaken to conceal space launch payloads, and concludes in a 2017 article that the EMP threat from North Korea’s satellites should be taken seriously:

…there have been fears expressed that North Korea might use a satellite to carry a small nuclear warhead into orbit and then detonate it over the United States for an EMP strike. These concerns seem extreme and require an astronomical scale of irrationality on the part of the regime. The most frightening aspect, I’ve come to realize, is that exactly such a scale of insanity is now evident in the rest of their ‘space program.” That doomsday scenario, it now seems, has been plausible enough to compel the United States to take active measures to insure that no North Korean satellite, unless thoroughly inspected before launch, be allowed to reach orbit and ever overfly the United States.9

Kim Jong-Un has threatened to reduce the United States to “ashes” with “nuclear thunderbolts” and threatened to retaliate for U.S. diplomatic and military pressure by “ordering officials and scientists to complete preparations for a satellite launch as soon as possible” amid “the enemies’
8 Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, “Whistling Past The Graveyard…” High Frontier (September 20, 2016) highfrontier.org/sept-20-2016-whistling-past-the-graveyard/ See also: highfrontier.org/category/fobs. On up to 90% U.S. fatalities from an EMP attack, during a congressional hearing, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett asked me if such high fatalities could result, and I responded: “We don’t have experience with losing the infrastructure in a country with 300 million people, most of whom don’t live in a way that provides for their own food and other needs. We can go back to an era when people did live like that. That would be—10 percent would be 30 million people, and that is probably the range where we could survive as a basically rural economy.” U.S. House of Representatives, Hearing, “Threat Posed By Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack” Committee on Armed Services (Washington, D.C.: July 10, 2008), p. 9. 9 Jim Oberg, Space Review (February 6, 2017) www.thespacereview.com/article/3164/1in a 2017 aricle

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harsh sanctions and moves to stifle” the North.10 North Korean press (for example in Rodong Sinmun; March 7, 2016) asserts readiness for “any form of war” and includes their satellite with “strengthening of the nuclear deterrent and legitimate artificial satellite launch, which are our fair and square self-defensive choice.” Moreover: “The nuclear [weapons] we possess are, precisely, the country’s sovereignty, right to live, and dignity. Our satellite that cleaves through space is the proud sign that unfolds the future of the most powerful state in the world.” The same article, like many others, warns North Korea makes “constant preparations so that we can fire the nuclear warheads, which have been deployed for actual warfare for the sake of national defense, at any moment!”
An earlier generation immediately understood the alarming strategic significance of Sputnik in 1957, yet few today understand or even care about the strategic significance of North Korea’s satellites, perhaps because of widespread ignorance about EMP.

Addressing Misinformation Misinformation about EMP abounds in the media, and even in many allegedly serious studies, from uninformed persons posturing as experts, who have no competency in EMP. False claims are often made that the EMP threat is “not real” but merely theoretical and greatly overblown.11

For example, one academic often quoted by the press claims that during the 1962 STARFISH PRIME high-altitude nuclear test, “just one string of street lights failed in Honolulu” and that this proved EMP is no threat.12 In fact, the EMP knocked-out 36 strings of street lights, caused a telecommunications microwave relay station to fail, burned out HF (High-Frequency) radio links (used for long-distance communications), set off burglar alarms, and caused other damage.13

The Hawaiian Islands did not experience a catastrophic protracted blackout because they were on the far edge of the EMP field contour, where effects are weakest; are surrounded by an ocean, which mitigates EMP effects; and were still in an age dominated by vacuum tube electronics.

as large as Western Europe.14 That test destroyed the Kazakh electric grid.15 Moreover, modern electronics, in part because they are designed to operate at much lower voltages, are much more vulnerable to EMP than the electronics of 1962 exposed to STARFISH PRIME and the Kazakh nuclear tests. A similar EMP event over the U.S. today would be an existential threat.16

Another academic wrongly asserts that because EMP from atmospheric nuclear tests in Nevada did not blackout Las Vegas, therefore EMP is no threat. The nuclear tests he describes were all endo-atmospheric tests that do not generate appreciable EMP fields beyond a range of about 5 miles. The high-altitude EMP (HEMP) threat of interest requires exo-atmospheric detonation, at 30 kilometers altitude or above, and produces EMP out to ranges of hundreds to thousands of miles. Las Vegas was not affected by the Nevada tests because they were endo-atmospheric nuclear tests that generated no HEMP.17

The same academic also miscalculates that “a 20-kiloton bomb detonated at optimum height would have a maximum EMP damage distance of 20 kilometers” in part, because he assumes “15,000 volts/meter or higher” in the E1 EMP component is necessary for damage. This figure is an extreme overestimate of system damage field thresholds. Damage and upset to electronic systems will happen from E1 EMP field strengths far below the academic’s “15,000 volts/meter or higher.” A one meter wire connected to a semiconductor device, such as a mouse cord or interconnection cable, would place hundreds to thousands of volts on microelectronic devices out to ranges of hundreds of miles for low-yield nuclear devices. Based on omission and other experience with many EMP tests, semiconductor junctions, operating at a few volts, will experience breakdown at a few volts over their operating point, allowing their power supply to destroy the junctions experiencing breakdown.18

The same academic and many other non-experts also ignore system upset as a vulnerability. Digital electronics can be upset by extraneous pulses of a few volts. For unmanned control systems present within the electric power grids, long-haul communication repeater stations, and gas pipelines, an electronic upset is tantamount to permanent damage. Temporary upset of electronics can also have catastrophic consequences for military operations. No electronics should be considered invulnerable to EMP unless hardened and tested to certify survivability.
14 High-altitude EMP (HEMP), the phenomenon under discussion, results from the detonation of a nuclear weapon at high-altitude, 30 kilometers or higher. All nuclear weapons, even a primitive Hiroshima-type A-bomb, can produce levels of HEMP damaging to modern electronics over large geographic regions. 15 According to Electric Infrastructure Security Council, Report: USSR Nuclear EMP Upper Atmosphere Kazakhstan Test 184, (www.eiscouncil.org/APP_Data/upload/a4ce4b06-1a77-44d-83eb-842bb2a56fc6.pdf), citing research by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a comparable EMP event over the U.S. today “would likely damage about 365 large transformers in the U.S. power grid, leaving about 40 percent of the U.S. population without electrical power for 4 to 10 years.” 16 EMP Commission Executive Report, op. cit., pp. 4-8. 17 Jack Liu, “A North Korean EMP Attack?…Unlikely” 38 North, May 5, 2017. 18 Ibid.

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Some highly critical unprotected electronics have been upset or damaged in simulated EMP tests, not at “15,000 volts/meter or higher,” but at threat levels far below 1,000 volts/meter.19

The North Korean missile test on April 29, 2017, which apparently detonated at an altitude of 72 kilometers, the optimum height-of-burst for EMP attack by a 10 KT warhead, would create a potentially damaging EMP field spanning, not the academic’s miscalculated 20 kilometers radius, but to about 930 kilometers radius [Kilometers Radius = 110 (Kilometers Burst Height to the 0.5 Power)].20

Therefore, even for a low-yield 10-20 kiloton weapon, the EMP field should be considered dangerous for unprotected U.S. systems. The EMP Commission 2004 Report warned against the U.S. military’s increasing use of commercial-off-the-shelf-technology that is not protected against EMP: “Our increasing dependence on advanced electronics systems results in the potential for an increased EMP vulnerability of our technologically advanced forces, and if unaddressed makes EMP employment by an adversary an attractive asymmetric option.”21

Empirical Basis for EMP Threat Better Established than Cyber Threat The empirical basis for the threat of an EMP attack to electric grids and other critical infrastructures is far deeper and broader than the data for cyber-attacks or sabotage. The notion that a cyber-attack or sabotage can plunge the U.S. into a protracted blackout–while very real threats that warrant deep concern–are far more theoretical constructs than EMP attack.
We know for certain that EMP will cause widespread damage of electronics and protracted blackout of unprotected electric grids and other critical infrastructures from such hard data as:
–The U.S. STARFISH PRIME high-altitude nuclear test in 1962 over Johnston Island that generated an EMP field over the Hawaiian Islands, over 1,300 kilometers away, causing widespread damage to electronic systems.22 –Six Russian EMP tests 1961-1962 over Kazakhstan that with a single weapon destroyed electric grids over an area larger than Western Europe, proving this capability six times.23 –30 years (1962-1992) of U.S. underground nuclear testing that included collecting data on EMP effects. –Over 50 years of testing by EMP simulators, still ongoing, including by the Congressional EMP Commission (2001-2008) that proved modern electronics are over 1 million times more vulnerable to EMP than the electronics of 1962.24
19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21EMP Commission, Executive Report, op. cit., p. 47. 22 Phil Plait, “The 50th Anniversary of Starfish Prime: The Nuke That Shook The World” Discover, July 9, 2012. 23 Jerry Emanuelson, “Soviet Test 184: The 1962 Soviet Nuclear EMP Tests Over Kazakhstan” Future Science, Undated; Vladimir M. Loborev, “Up to Date State of the NEMP Problems and Topical Research Directions” Electromagnetic Environments and Consequences: Proceedings of the European International Symposium on Electromagnetic Environments, EUROEM Conference, Bordeaux, France, 1994; V. N. Mikhailov, The Nuclear Tests of the USSR, Vol. 2, Institute of Strategic Stability, Rosatom.

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Moreover, hard data proving the threat from nuclear EMP is available from natural EMP generated by geomagnetic storms, accidental damage caused by electromagnetic transients, and non-nuclear radiofrequency weapons (RF weapons). All of these produce field strengths much less powerful than nuclear EMP, and in the case of accidental electromagnetic transients and radiofrequency weapons, much more localized. There are many thousands of such cases.
Many documented examples of successful attacks using RF weapons, and accidents involving electromagnetic transients, are described in the Department of Defense Pocket Guide for Security Procedures and Protocols for Mitigating Radio Frequency Threats (Technical Support Working Group, Directed Energy Technical Office, Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center). A few examples:
–“Radio Frequency Weapons were used in separate incidents against the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to falsely set off alarms and to induce a fire in a sensitive area.” –“In Kzlyar, Dagestan, Russia, Chechen rebel commander Salman Raduyev disabled police radio communications using RF transmitters during a raid.” –“In June 1999 in Bellingham, Washington, RF energy from a radar induced a SCADA malfunction that caused a gas pipeline to rupture and explode.” –“In 1999, a Robinson R-44 news helicopter nearly crashed when it flew by a high-frequency broadcast antenna.” –North Korea used a Radio Frequency Weapon, purchased from Russia, to attack airliners and impose an “electromagnetic blockade” on air traffic to Seoul, South Korea’s capital. The repeated attacks by RFW also disrupted communications and the operation of automobiles in several South Korean cities in December 2010; March 9, 2011; and April-May 2012.25
Vulnerabilities to EMP When assessing the potential vulnerability of U.S. military forces and civilian critical infrastructures to EMP, it is necessary to be mindful of the complex interdependencies of these highly-networked systems, because EMP upset and damage of a very small fraction of the total system can cause total system failure.26

Real world failures of electric grids from various causes indicate that a nuclear EMP attack would have catastrophic consequences. Significant and highly disruptive blackouts have been caused by single-point failures cascading into system-wide failures, originating from damage comprising far less than 1 percent of the total system. For example:
–The Great Northeast Blackout of 2003–that put 50 million people in the dark for a day, contributed to at least 11 deaths, and cost an estimated $6 billion—originated from a single
24 “Electromagnetic Pulse: Threat to Critical Infrastructures” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies, House Committee on Homeland Security, Washington, D.C.: May 8, 2014. 25 “Massive GPS Jamming Attack By North Korea” GPSWORLD.COM, May 8, 2012. 26 Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, Critical National Infrastructures, 2008, passim.

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failure point when a powerline contacted a tree branch, damaging less than 0.0000001 (0.00001%) of the system. –The New York City Blackout of 1977, that resulted in the arrest of 4,500 looters and injury of 550 police officers, was caused by a lightning strike on a substation that tripped two circuit breakers. –The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965, that effected 30 million people, happened because a protective relay on a transmission line was improperly set. –India’s nationwide blackout of July 30-31, 2012—the largest blackout in history, effecting 670 million people, 9% of the world population—was caused by overload of a single high-voltage powerline. –India’s blackout of January 2, 2001—effecting 226 million people—was caused by equipment failure at the Uttar Pradesh substation. –Indonesia’s blackout of August 18, 2005—effecting 100 million people—was caused by overload of a high-voltage powerline. –Brazil’s blackout of March 11, 1999—effecting 97 million people—was caused by a lightning strike on an EHV transformer substation. –Italy’s blackout of September 28, 2003—effecting 55 million people—was caused by overload of two high-voltage powerlines. –Germany, France, Italy, and Spain experienced partial blackouts on November 4, 2006— effecting 10-15 million people—from accidental shutdown of a high-voltage powerline. –The San Francisco blackout in April 2017 was caused by the failure of a single high voltage breaker.
In contrast to the above blackouts caused by single-point or small-scale failures, a nuclear EMP attack would inflict massive widespread damage to the electric grid causing millions of failure points. With few exceptions, the U.S. national electric grid is unhardened and untested against nuclear EMP attack.
In the event of a nuclear EMP attack on the United States, a widespread protracted blackout is inevitable. This commonsense assessment is also supported by the nation’s best computer modeling:
–Modeling by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reportedly assesses that a terrorist attack that destroys just 9 of 2,000 EHV transformers–merely 0.0045 (0.45%) of all EHV transformers in the U.S. national electric grid–would be catastrophic damage, causing a protracted nationwide blackout. –Modeling by the Congressional EMP Commission assesses that a terrorist nuclear EMP attack, using a primitive 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, could destroy dozens of EHV transformers, thousands of SCADAS and electronic systems, causing catastrophic collapse and protracted blackout of the U.S. Eastern Grid, putting at risk the lives of millions.27
27For the best unclassified modeling assessment of likely damage to the U.S. national electric grid from nuclear EMP attack see: U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Interagency Report, coordinated with the Department of Defense and Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Electromagnetic Pulse: Effects on the U.S. Power Grid,

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Thus, even if North Korea has only primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons, and likewise if other states or terrorists acquire one or a few such weapons, and the capability to detonate them at 30 kilometers or higher-altitude over the United States, as the EMP Commission warned over a decade ago in its 2004 Report: “The damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack.”28

What Is To Be Done? We recommend establishing an Executive Agent – a Cabinet Secretary designated by the President – with the authority, accountability, and resources, to manage U.S. national infrastructure protection and defense against EMP and the other existential threats described above. Current institutional authorities and responsibilities–government, industry, regulatory agencies—are fragmented, incomplete, and unable to protect and defend against foreign hostile EMP threats or solar super-storms.
We encourage the President to work with Congressional leaders to stand-up an ad hoc Joint Presidential-Congressional Commission, with its members charged with supporting the Nation’s leadership and providing expertise, experience, and oversight to achieve, on an accelerated basis, the protection of critical national infrastructures. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) have for nearly a decade been unable or unwilling to implement the EMP Commission’s recommendations. A Presidential-Congressional Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection could engage the Free World’s preeminent experts on EMP and Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare to serve the entire Government in a manner akin to the Atomic Energy Commission of the 1947-74 period, advising the Administration’s actions to attain most quickly and most cost-effectively the protection essential to long-term national survival and wellbeing. The United States should not remain in our current state of fatal vulnerability to well-known natural and man-made threats.
We highly commend President Trump’s new Executive Order “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure” signed on May 11, 2017. We strongly recommend that implementation of cybersecurity for the electric grid and other critical infrastructures include EMP protection, since all-out cyber warfare as planned by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran includes nuclear EMP attack. However, current institutional arrangements for protecting and improving the reliability of the electric grids and other critical infrastructures through the U.S. FERC and the NERC are not designed to
Executive Summary (2010); FERC Interagency Report by Edward Savage, James Gilbert and William Radasky, The Early-Time (E1) High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) and Its Impact on the U.S. Power Grid (Meta-R-320) Metatech Corporation (January 2010); FERC Interagency Report by James Gilbert, John Kappenman, William Radasky, and Edward Savage, The Late-Time (E3) High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) and Its Impact on the U.S. Power Grid (Meta-R-321) Metatech Corporation (January 2010). 28 EMP Commission Executive Report, op. cit., p. 1.

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address major national security threats to the electric power grids and other national critical infrastructures. Using FERC and NERC to achieve this level of national security is beyond the purpose for which those organizations were created and has proven to be fundamentally unworkable. New institutional arrangements are needed to advance preparedness to survive EMP and related threats to our critical national infrastructures.
We recommend that U.S. military forces and critical national infrastructures be protected from EMP as outlined in the EMP Commission’s classified reports and unclassified reports provided in 2004 and 2008. EMP protection of military systems and civilian/military critical national infrastructures can be achieved cost-effectively by a combination of operational procedures and physical hardening. It is not necessary to harden everything. Selective hardening of key critical nodes and equipment will suffice. Threat parameters are 200 kilovolts/meter for E1 EMP and 85 volts/kilometer for E3 EMP. Critical national infrastructures are already adequately protected from E2 EMP, equivalent to lightning.
We recommend, given the proximity and enormity of the threat from EMP and CombinedArms Cyber Warfare, the President exercise leadership to implement immediate, midterm, and long-term steps to deter and defeat this existential threat:
Immediately:
We recommend that the President declare that EMP or cyber-attacks that blackout or threaten to blackout the national electric grid constitute the use of weapons of mass destruction that justify preemptive and retaliatory responses by the United States using all possible means, including nuclear weapons. Some potential adversaries have the capability to produce a protracted nationwide blackout induced by EMP or Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare by the use of nuclear or non-nuclear means. A Defense Science Board study Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat (January 2013) equates an all-out cyber-attack on the United States with the consequences of a nuclear attack, and concludes that a nuclear response is justified to deter or retaliate for cyber warfare that threatens the life of the nation: “While the manifestation of a nuclear and cyber-attack are very different, in the end, the existential impact to the United States is the same.”
We recommend that the President issue an Executive Order, provided to the previous White House, titled “Protecting the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)”. Among many other provisions to protect the nation from EMP on an emergency basis, the Executive Order would instantly mobilize a much needed “whole of government solution” to the EMP and combined-arms cyber threat: “All U.S. Government Departments, Agencies, Offices, Councils, Boards, Commissions and other U.S. Government entities…shall take full and complete account of the EMP threat in forming policies and plans to protect United States critical infrastructures…” Protecting the electric grids and other critical infrastructures from the worst threat—nuclear EMP attack—can, if carried out in a system-wide, integrated approach, help mitigate all lesser threats, including natural EMP, man-made non-nuclear EMP, cyberattack, physical sabotage, and severe terrestrial weather.

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We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to include a Limited Nuclear Option for EMP attack among the U.S. nuclear strike plans, and immediately make targeting and fusing adjustments to some of the nuclear forces needed to implement a nuclear EMP attack capability.
We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to use national technical means to ascertain if there is a nuclear weapon aboard North Korea’s KMS-3 or KMS-4 satellites that orbit over the United States. If either or both of these satellites are nucleararmed, they should be intercepted and destroyed over a broad ocean area where an EMP resulting from salvage-fusing will do the least damage to humanity.
We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to post Aegis ships in the Gulf of Mexico and near the east and west coasts, to search for and be prepared to intercept missiles launched from freighters, submarines, or other platforms that might make a nuclear EMP attack on the United States. U.S. National Missile Defenses (NMD) are primarily located in Alaska and California and oriented for a missile attack coming at the U.S. from the north, and are not deployed to intercept a short-warning missile attack launched near the U.S. coasts.
We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to harden the FirstNet emergency communications system against EMP.
We recommend that the President initiate training, evaluating, and “Red Teaming” efforts to protect the U.S. and in the event of an EMP attack to respond, and periodically report the results of these efforts to the Congress.
Mid-Term:
We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to deploy Aegis-ashore missile interceptors along the Gulf of Mexico coast to plug the hole in U.S. missile defenses. The U.S. has no Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radars or missile interceptors facing south, and is largely blind and defenseless from that direction, including to missiles launched from submarines or off ships, or from a nuclear-armed satellite orbiting on a south polar trajectory.
We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to develop a spacesurveillance program to detect if any satellites orbited over the United States are nucleararmed, and develop space-interception capabilities to defend against nuclear-armed satellites that might make an EMP attack.
We recommend that the President direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to launch a crash program to harden the over 100 nuclear power reactors and their spent fuel storage facilities against nuclear EMP attack. Nuclear power reactors typically only have enough emergency power to cool reactor cores and spent fuel rods for a few days, after which they would “go Fukushima” spreading radioactivity over much of the United States.
Long-Term:

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We recommend that the President through his Executive Agent protect elements of the national electric grids, the keystone critical infrastructure upon which all other critical infrastructures depend. Priority should be given to elements that are difficult and timeconsuming to replace. Such elements can be protected from EMP at very low cost relative to the costs of an EMP catastrophe, and paid for without federal dollars by a slight increase in user electric rates. We recommend that a similar approach be taken to key elements of the national telecommunications infrastructure and other national critical infrastructures.
We recommend the development and deployment of enhanced-EMP nuclear weapons and other means to deter adversary attack on the United States. Enhanced-EMP nuclear weapons, called by the Russians Super-EMP weapons, can be developed without nuclear testing.
We recommend strengthening U.S. ballistic missile defenses—including deployment of space-based defenses considered by the Strategic Defense Initiative— and that these be designed and postured to also protect the U.S. from EMP attack.

What can you do?

First, contact your representatives in Congress and let them know that you want the EMP Commission re-Instated. Second, be sure to let them know how concerned you are about this threat, and that you expect them to do something about protecting America’s extremely vulnerable national infrastructure from such an obvious threat from any and all of America’s enemies.

The phone number for the Congressional Switchboard, which you can use to contact your representatives in the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate is (202) 224-3121.

Of course they can also be reached at www.house.gov or www.senate.gov as well.

In the year 6565

You won’t need no husband, won’t need no wife

You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too

From the bottom of a long glass tube

From In the year 2525 by Zager and Evans

Meet CRISPR….

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)

Like other DNA editing techniques, the CRISPR/Cas9 system takes advantage of a cell’s DNA repair machinery to delete (knock-out) or add in (knock-in) sequences of DNA. However, CRISPR/Cas9 offers several advantages: it is easier to target a specific gene of interest since designing the required CRISPR component is simple and efficient, whereas generating ZFNs and TALENs is more time consuming; it is often more proficient in generating the desired recombination results; and it is exponentially more cost effective, so almost any laboratory in the world can use it. CRISPR/Cas9 has been shown to work in several model organisms, and consequently researchers are keen to apply this technology for modifying genetic mutations in humans with uncured diseases as well as in human embryos, which arouses many scientific and ethical considerations.

Princeton University shocked the world in 1999 when they reported genetically engineering mice with better memories. They achieved the effect by popping an extra copy of the NR2B gene into their genomes. This gene encodes the NMDA receptor, which is used in memory formation and can affect a trait that neuroscientists call “long-term potentiation.” The press dubbed the super smart mouse pups “Doogie mice,” after the popular television show Doogie Hauser MD (then in syndication). At the time, Tsien said, if it worked in humans, everyone would want to use it, since “everyone wants to be smart.”

In Future Schism one of the dystopian provinces forces genetic modification on its citizens to best suit the needs of the government. If we’re not careful, could we wake-up one day to find our governments telling us what sex our child must be, and what hair, eye, and skin color, and what I.Q. he or she must have.

Weighing the benefits of treating disease with the horrific consequences of playing God is something we must always be careful to balance out.

*Visit the website below for more information: http://sage.buckinstitute.org/ethical-implications-of-human-genetic-engineering-2/

]]>http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?feed=rss2&p=7340734A Second American Civil War? Life Imitates Fictionhttp://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=726
http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=726#respondSun, 12 Nov 2017 10:47:42 +0000http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=726 A Second American […]

Life Imitates Fiction

Future Schism is a dystopian novel set in the future, some one-hundred years after the Second Great American Civil War had finally come to an end.

Following the war, the United States is dissolved as a nation, and two independently-ruled provinces are created to take its place, one for liberals and the other for conservatives.

When I researched the novel I had no idea that there had already been some talk of secession by some liberal politicians, or that some were already talking about a possible Second Civil War! The article below from RealPolitics is only one of many hits that came back when I did a search on “Second Civil War.” Try it yourself!

]]>http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?feed=rss2&p=7260726Future Schism is Now Available-Read the First Professional Review from Readers’ Favoritehttp://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=717
http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=717#respondWed, 08 Nov 2017 03:32:44 +0000http://www.hortonlibrary.com/?p=717 Future Schism is finally now available. It is truly my fervent […]

Future Schism is finally now available. It is truly my fervent hope that you will enjoy this read. While it is certainly focused on some very serious issues confronting our world today, as always there is also the human element, that ever-present all too human trait, hope, which is present even in our darkest moments of despair. There is even the opportunity to love, whether short-lived, or for a lifetime.

Below is the Five-Star review from Reader’s Favorite. Again, I hope you enjoy reading Future Schism…

Review #1: Review by Viga Boland

Reviewed By:

Viga Boland

Review Rating:

5 Stars – Congratulations on your 5-star review!

Reviewed By Viga Boland for Readers’ Favorite

Jeff W. Horton, author of Future Schism, is a prolific writer: in the past six years, since retiring as an information technology expert, he has published ten books! It is his vast experience with IT that he incorporates into this intriguing, dystopian future world of the United States … and what a brutal, unsettling world that is.

The year is 2176 or thereabouts and the US, as we know it today, no longer exists. After a second civil, cultural, and social war between the red and blue sides of the country – not hard to figure out the significance – both sides are experiencing unrest, poverty, hunger, loss of freedom of religion and other basic human rights that the US constitution granted its people centuries before. It’s only natural then that an underground resistance movement begins on both sides and gathers momentum: it’s time to overthrow the powers that be and establish a new America, one where injections don’t shorten the life span of a lower class to make them more physically productive, or where an aging member of the upper class gets a new heart before a child in desperate need. Daniel and Kayla are at the helm of each side. Though their initial reasons and goals for their respective sides are different, they are intellectually and emotionally invested in their overall goal. Ultimately they bring themselves and the two sides together, but they have a dangerous, life-threatening job to do. Will they succeed? That’s what will keep readers turning the pages of Future Schism.

Not all readers bother with the information contained in the prologue of a book, but it’s a good idea to read the prologue of Future Schism: it prepares us for what is to come and why. What it won’t prepare readers for is the very easy-reading, dialogue-filled style that Jeff W. Horton uses to tell this story: his storytelling technique is excellent. He is also quite the romantic and enjoys depicting the interplay between the sexes as much as the details of battle. His dystopian world is one where cell phones that “fried” people’s brains no longer exist and communication on all levels is through “holocoms,” but oddly enough, cars are still a mode of transport in 2176 while space navigation is via wormholes. It all makes for a most entertaining read, both from the point of view of the possibilities of where our whole world and not just the US will be a couple of centuries from now. If a blend of romance and dystopia is your kind of reading, you’ll enjoy Future Schism.

To begin with, to those of you who have been following this blog I would like to first say thank you. I would also like to apologize for not being more regular with my postings. The truth be known I’m afraid I’ve posted more to Facebook than I have here, but that’s about to change. I’ve decided that I’d like to do more to communicate directly to fans.

The ride may be a little bumpy at first so feel free to send me an email at jeff@hortonlibrary.com. with any suggestions. I still hold down a day job and will continue to until I can make enough from my writing and, eventually, the screenplays/motion pictures to retire from my career in Information technology and focus full-time on my writing, at which time I promise to hire someone else to maintain the website so I can focus on writing, and communicating with you wonderful people.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to invite you to send me any questions you have for me. They can be about whatever is on your mind as long as your question is in some way relevant to writing. If you write me asking how to build a fusion reactor I’m afraid you’ll be out of luck, lol. Here are some examples of topics you could write me on.

Suggested topics:

My writing process

Any of my published novels

Current projects,

Future projects

Advice for aspiring writers

Please email any questions with the subject line “FAN QUESTION FOR HORTONLIBRARY BLOG” and if it’s approved, I’ll add it to the new Question & Answer Page. Please send in your questions, I look forward to hearing from you!

NOTE: From time to time I may experience a glitch in the email here. If you don’t see your question pop-up within 4-5 weeks feel free to re-send it; thanks!

Future Schism!

As you are hopefully aware, my latest novel, Future Schism, is due to be released this coming Monday. It’s already available from Barnes & Noble for Pre-Order:Click here to Pre-Order Future-Schism

I will also be holding a Facebook release Event

for the novel Monday night, from 7:00-9:00 PM Eastern. I’m re-posting the information below in case you missed it.

In the not too distant future…

Two heroes will arise, a man and a woman, who will risk everything to find each other, and to lead their people through a second American revolution, and to freedom…

There will be giveaways, author Q&As, and general discussion about the novel in general.

NOTE: As there re some political elements to this novel and our country IS so politically divided right now (this was, in part, what this novel was intended to address) let’s please keep any political discourse civil, at least during this release event…please?

Anyone violating this policy will be banned from participating in the giveaways!

Jeff W. Horton of the Horton Library!

++Two heroes will arise, a man and a woman, who will risk everything to find each other, and to lead their people through a second American revolution, and to freedom…

About the Release Event:

There will be giveaways, author Q&As, and general discussion about the novel i general.

NOTE: As there re some political elements to this novel and our country IS so politically divided right now (this was, in part, what this novel was intended to address) let’s please keep any political discourse civil, at least during this release event…please?

Anyone violating this policy will be banned from participating in the giveaways!